Charges in cases of identity theft from children

By
Jeremy Roebuck

A
former social worker and three employees of a residential-care facility for the
disabled have been charged with selling the identities of children in their
care to help others cheat on their taxes - a scheme U.S. Attorney Zane David
Memeger described Thursday as "truly despicable."

Federal
prosecutors unsealed an indictment accusing Gebah Kamara, 46, of Sharon Hill,
of stealing personal information from several foster children he encountered
while working for Catholic Social Services, the charitable wing of the
Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Also
charged were Musa Turay, 41; Ibrahim Kamara, 48; and Foday Mansaray, 38 - all
employees of the Villanova-based Devereux Foundation, a charity that runs
residential centers for patients with developmental disabilities. The three
also held jobs at Medmans Financial Services, a Southwest Philadelphia
tax-preparation firm.

IRS
investigators say that company's owner, Mohamed Mansaray, paid Gebah Kamara and
the others for the stolen Social Security numbers and other information, and
then charged his clients $800 to claim the children as fraudulent dependents on
their tax returns.

In
addition to Mansaray and the three who worked for Devereux, two other employees
of Medmans were also charged with counts of conspiracy, tax fraud, and identity
theft.

Momolu
Sirleaf, owner of a separate tax-preparation service in Darby Borough, also
faces charges for a similar scheme involving identification information of
foster children.

In
all, prosecutors claim the purported fraud bilked the government out of at
least $6 million in unpaid taxes from 2008 to 2013. Five of the eight
defendants were arrested Thursday and made initial appearances in federal court
in Philadelphia. All were released on bond after surrendering passports from
West African nations such as Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Few
had attorneys. Gebah Kamara and his lawyer, James Polyak, declined to comment
about the case.

Representatives
from Catholic Social Services did not return calls Thursday for comment. Gebah
Kamara left the agency in 2011 for reasons unrelated to his arrest, Polyak
said.

It
remained unclear whether Devereux, whose spokeswoman also did not return calls,
still employed Turay, Mansaray, and Ibrahim Kamara. It was unclear whether the
two Kamaras and the two Mansarays were related.

If
convicted, each of the eight defendants faces possible decades-long prison
terms.

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